February 7, 2012

Here is a man who has — as I read this truly fascinating article — devoted himself to sperm donation for altruistic, religious reasons. He gives the sperm, only to couples, and he maintains a rigorous health regime designed to produce the best quality product.

And I use the word "product" to highlight the fact that the FDA has filed a "cease manufacture" order against him.

Although sperm is neither a food nor a drug, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research regulates those who traffic in it, enforcing frequent and comprehensive tests designed to curb the spread of communicable diseases and genetic disorders. Historically the agency has focused only on traditional sperm banks, not private donors, but Trent was unprecedentedly public about what he was doing. When the FDA first contacted him, he had naïvely signed a piece of paper confirming that he was “an establishment.” In August 2010, using that as a pretext, the FDA sent three agents to his house, where for several days they interviewed him and copied his records. Trent had by then made 340 donations to some 46 different recipients. The scrutiny was time-consuming and stressful; he didn’t have a lawyer and worried than he might land in prison.

By November, the FDA determined that Trent wasn’t screening for diseases nearly often enough, and it issued its cease-­manufacture order. Trent replied that he wished to contest it. He wasn’t charging money, as he explained, and he was helping people. He knew that he was celibate, that he was disease-free, and that he took extraordinary measures to safeguard his DNA. He considered his relationship with his recipients to be “intimate.” Why should the government regulate what he was doing, when anyone, with who knew what health issues, could walk into a bar and have a one-night stand? A government-accountability public-interest group, Cause of Action, agreed, seeing the FDA action as a ringing example of regulatory overreach, and filed a brief on Trent’s behalf. “We questioned him as to the parameters of his relationship with recipients,” Amber Taylor, the chief counsel for Cause of Action, says. “We took away that he’s a very generous, helpful person who sees people in need who could not have children without some form of assistance, who are often lower income or underserved by the fertility-medicine industry.” Trent is currently awaiting a decision by the FDA on whether to grant him a hearing, and in the meantime, the cease-manufacture order has been suspended.

I'm sure that, after this high-profile article, the FDA will back off. But let's talk about the legal issues here. Does Arsenault have a right of privacy in his relationship with the couples he assists? "He describes himself as a 'donorsexual,' with all of his libidinal energy channeled in service of others." Consider that he has 15 — and counting — children through this activity, which had deep religious and emotional meaning to him:

Many of the recipients who have successfully become pregnant have maintained contact with Trent; the lack of anonymity has always been part of his appeal. They send him ultrasounds and arrange to have Trent meet the child. He has a bag ready to go containing his own old toys, which he gives away, and items he uses to observe childhood development....

Trent sits at his desk and pulls up Facebook, where he clicks through photographs of many of his biological children....

Even if he were to stop donating—which he would do immediately if, for instance, he learned that one of his children was autistic or had another genetic problem—Trent says he would stick with his extreme health regimen. “I want to be alive for the children. They will want to know about me. It may not be until they turn 18, or later in life, that they decide they want to meet me, so I want to be in a good capacity to meet them.”

Quite aside from whether he has a constitutional right of privacy with respect to these intimate relationships, why does the federal government have power over his activity? Because it regulates the sperm bank business and this is like the way it can regulate growing one marijuana plant even one that isn't intended for the commercial market? But marijuana is a commodity, and — as the Supreme Court said in Gonzales v. Raich — "the regulation is squarely within Congress’ commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity."

"Many of the recipients who have successfully become pregnant have maintained contact with Trent; the lack of anonymity has always been part of his appeal. They send him ultrasounds and arrange to have Trent meet the child. He has a bag ready to go containing his own old toys, which he gives away, and items he uses to observe childhood development...."

Creepy ... giving this, fill in the blank, and the parents the benefit of the doubt, different strokes for different folks.

When we are so far down the road that we can contemplate without laughing or grabbing a pitchfork that growing a plant for personal use has substantial effect on interstate commerce, thus justifying federal regulation, then anything becomes possible.

And all this time I thought I had to get a vasectomy. I didn't know I could just issue a "cease manufacture" order to my balls.

And yeah, it really is past time to repeal the Commerce Clause. Our political leaders have proven time and time again they cannot be trusted with it so we need to take it away from them just like you would take the scissors away from a child who runs with them and cuts up your furniture.

@Darrell The stuff about his masturbating on camera (and being on camera 24/7) is in the New York Magazine article that I linked to.

Before you reject this guy — with that "porn star" URL — please read the article. Take in the whole story and then tell me how you judge him.

I kept seeing things that made me drift toward a negative judgment, but in the end, I could not get there. I came away thinking this is a very unusual man, but he has found a mission in life, he is devoted and altruistic, and he really is some kind of saint.

You might think he's so odd he shouldn't pass on his genes to the next generation, but at this point he has so many offspring that you can just look at them and see whether his genetic contribution is good.

A few days ago I regifted this tidbit from Slashdot in these here comments:

Quick: Name five activities with no possible plausible effect on interstate commerce.

I'm still stumped!

Incidentally, that piece involved the FDA too.

I guess we now have national government. Nothing is left to the state. If you keep on expanding the applicability of the Commerce Clause, while limiting the applicability of Amendment X, then that's what you get.

It would be nice if Romney and the Republicans made this a campaign issue. I guess they don't because they want things to go in this direction too.

In Darwin, there is the concept of the sneaky fucker. While the alpha males are locking horns on the mountain top in order to establish their alpha status, down in the valley some opportunistic beta male is locking genitals with the neglected females. This guy takes sneaky fucking to a whole new level....It doesn't matter whether he deserves to pass his genes through to another generation. He already has, and in greater quantity than the average NBA player.

I can't recall any saints who masturbated on camera to a bowl of blueberries, but I haven't read everything that's ever been written. Right now I'm seeing red flags and suspect we'll learn more now that all this publicity has started.

A few years ago, a German fellow put up an ad on Cannibal Café looking for woman he wanted to kill and eat and he got over 200 responses. Trent's concern for ozone depletion and all the right issues certainly makes him a catch.A secular humanist "saint" perhaps. I suspect mental problems myself, some sort of fetish for procreation/reproduction--without the messy (read "good") bits. The lack of interest in females as a teen isn't interesting to the world of psychiatry these days, I guess. Maybe his "acute aversion to the sun" while living in Cali should be.

I kept seeing things that made me drift toward a negative judgment, but in the end, I could not get there. I came away thinking this is a very unusual man, but he has found a mission in life, he is devoted and altruistic, and he really is some kind of saint.

If the FDA really wanted to go after unregulated sperm donations it could make a trip to South Central LA where, on any given Saturday night, there are thousands of guys in their mid-twenties making direct sperm donations to girls still in middle school.

Seems more an example of "regulatory reacharound" than overreach. lol.

"Cease manufacture order"

Sounds like he could fairly claim that the federal government has ordered him to have a vasectomy or castration. Outside the context of those chemical castration sentences occasionally handed down to the worst sexual predators found guilty of criminal conduct, this is unprecedented, no?

Please, everyone is confusing the issue! That issue, quite simply, is that only one person has the right to determine who shall father children in our enlightened society.

To have the situation to be otherwise would be to revert back to old style relationships. So, quite simply, the issue is to have but a few well chosen persons selected to father the nation's children. And, obviously, no one so appointed Mr. Trent Whatshisname. Problem resolved and so quickly too.